They would ask me what actors I saw in the roles. I would tell them, and they’d say “Oh that’s interesting.” And that would be the end of it.
--Elmore Leonard, in 2000, on the extent of his input for Hollywood's adaptation of his novels

Friday, December 5, 2014

Beth Bernobich's "The Time Roads"

Beth Bernobich is an American science fiction and fantasy author. Her short stories have appeared in Asimov's, Interzone, Strange Horizons, and Tor.com, among other places. Her novels include the fantasy trilogy River of Souls and the YA fantasy Fox & Phoenix. She lives in Connecticut with her husband, son, and two idiosyncratic cats.

Here Bernobich dreamcasts an adaptation of her new novel, The Time Roads:

The Time Roads is probably the first novel where I matched real-world actors to the characters in my head. It's also a novel that consists of four separate stories, written over the course of twelve years, so my choices reflect not only how I pictured my characters, but when I first wrote the story where each first appeared.

Áine Devereaux, the Queen of Éire, is easy. My choice is Cate Blanchett as she appeared in Elizabeth. She has the height, the regal attitude, the ability to play both sides of Áine's character, by turns cool and dispassionate, fierce and quick-tempered.

Continuing along the list of actors from Elizabeth, Joseph Fiennes is the man to play Breandan Ó Cuilinn, the scientist who becomes the Queen's first favorite, and whose studies of time travel launch the book's events.

For Aidrean Ó Deághaidh, the Queen's spymaster and a high-ranking member of the Queen's Constabulary, my top choice would be Cíaran Hinds. Look at pictures of Hinds over the past twenty years. (I certainly can. *fans self vigorous*) He's got the brooding look of the younger Ó Deághaidh, and careworn face of the older and somewhat disillusioned man.

Choosing a director is much harder for me, because I don't always remember the names behind a film. However, there is one name that stuck with me long after I saw his take on the themes of time and time travel. That would be Alfonso Cuarón for his work on Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

“Compared to a novel, a film is like an economy pizza where there are no olives, no ham, no anchovies, no mushrooms, and all you’ve got is the dough.”
--Louis de Bernières, author of Captain Corelli’s Mandolin